Me and a friend are 480 000 Lego pieces into the project. First exhibition will be at the end of June. Right now I am building rocks. And rocks. And more rocks. Have I mentioned I'm building rocks yet?

Sometimes even 15 minutes on the street clock is a world away! A letter of the alphabet can be an entire light-year, a galaxy, a universe. - AntiM

Me and a friend are 480 000 Lego pieces into the project. First exhibition will be at the end of June. Right now I am building rocks. And rocks. And more rocks. Have I mentioned I'm building rocks yet?

All this AND a Caravansary golf cart! Busy girl!

"Resistance is futile. You will be commodified"..."c.f Larry Harvey, The BMOrg

Me and a friend are 480 000 Lego pieces into the project. First exhibition will be at the end of June. Right now I am building rocks. And rocks. And more rocks. Have I mentioned I'm building rocks yet?

*Kat* that's an amazing project! Wonderful details in the pictures! I can only imagine the time put into it.

Well, I can't claim much for the golf cart. All I did was the sketch, good friends will take care of the modifications (gosh, it sucks living on the other side of the planet!)I need to update that sketch though, the idea has by now evolved into also being an elephant.

Sometimes even 15 minutes on the street clock is a world away! A letter of the alphabet can be an entire light-year, a galaxy, a universe. - AntiM

Whew... just finished putting together a custom design metro commercial prep cart. It's got a galvanized steel flat top and can use it for food prep or staging, or for a mobile bar cart iffen I want, and then some wire rack shelving below. I'll probably end up using it as another food prep area for what we're doing on the playa, but it's mostly to have and use in Defaultia. It was a bit of a pain in the ass to put together, the vertical posts came with something called a post casting insert set in them, which is ideal if I was just using leveling screws and I wasn't making something mobile. It took some doing to get those suckers out of the bottom, then from there I was able to get the casters in and put all the rest of the bits together.

We also got a bunch of additional compatible hardware for a shelving system Pandorra likes (and we've got parts for). In the next few days we'll turn the pieces into a shelving system for above her computer desk, so she can better organize various art and sewing projects (right now the sewing rack's just way overloaded, and the clutter's driving her nuts). When we get to that project, I'll try to grab pics of both projects.

That thing's awesome! It reminds me of a pic I saw of a burn barrel made from the inside of a busted clothes dryer, but yours looks bigger and better suited for the playa (off the ground, mobile, etc).

It is made of a stainless front load washer drum that I scavenged from my permanently broken washer. The drum does come out of the 1/3 barrel fairly easily and then ash dumps right out. It roasts hot dogs like a champ and may make an appearance on playa if I can find a place to tie it on the trailer. The truck is already way too overloaded. Although the Free Range Mobile Fire Pit Wagon is a complete functional unit as is I may add some more too it as the Barrel base and Wash drum is the basis of an idea I have for a convertible warming/cooking stove. Next project is the engine replacement in Golficus Carticus as I need to have it tip top for a disabled burner to borrow again this year.

Black Rock City Welding and Repair. The Night Time Warming Station.

When you pass the 4th "bridge out!" sign; the flaming death is all yours.-Knowmad-

Okay, I finally got a chance to get some pictures together from recent projects...

First, that cart I made the other day. The bottom shelf is intentionally deep, to be able to accommodate a bin that holds taller booze bottles.. and the top shelf is intentionally shallow, to be able to hold pizza peels, pans, etc.

Next up was the shelving project. I helped where she needed it (as did the cat), but this was Pandorra's handiwork. First shot celebrating the new space, and second one with various project bins. You can tell we're burners, they range from grommets and EL wire to thread, buttons, clay, e-textiles, and swarovski crystals....

Next up, Safety Camel! I'd made a scale cutout of a camel design for a camp project, and figured I'd give it a coat of paint.

Then I worked on my limoncello, taking the first batch from Phase 1 into Phase 2 by scooping out the lemon bits, filtering it twice, and then mixing with the sugar syrup I'd made and cooled. For this year's batches, I'm deviating from the plan by letting the lemons spend more time in phase 1 - the result should be a stronger yet smoother meyer lemon taste, but the side effect is that what's left of the lemons has gone albino. The last pic shows a before/after 1 round of filtration, it's hard to really tell in that pic but it really gets out all the little particulates. Woohoo, I'm hoping this year's batches really kick things up a notch.

Pizza science continues, with us continuing to test and use the propane pizza oven and get familiar with the equipment (yeah, that's it). Fortunately our place has street access, so we can get set up really easily. Not looking too shabby, and tastes even better than it looks.

During the gaps and bits of time I found between projects last week I also managed to squirrel away some quality time in the studio, and actually managed to pull together a decent set. Riffing on the word palindrome in honor of the american calendar date format string of dates from 4/11/14 to 4/19/14, I call the set Palindromeda. Feel free to check it out (free to play, download, share, etc).

Then finally today, my new primary GPU arrived for my computer. It's got a little more than double the horsepower of my old GPU, but will allow me to drive a third display in my computer setup. Well, it drives the primary setup and then my secondary GPU drives the monitors on each side. I use the smaller screens for less intensive stuff like email, chat, twitter, music player, and floating control windows. Forgive the clutter, I shuffled a lot of stuff around quickly to get it plugged in and haven't taken the time to dial things up.

I've got three questions:1. What is the advantage of mixing the Everclear and the Vodka before soaking the lemon peel in it? (My thinking is that the 40% Vodka would "dilute" the 95% Everclear, wouldn't it be better to mix them after the soaking of the peels is done?)2. Have you ever tried to just add lemon peels as they, well, accumulate? 15 lemons would make a LOT of lemonade and lemon cake and, and, and... here. So I'm thinking if it's possible to just add them to the Everclear as I use the lemons anyway. Can't hurt, can it? (Of course this would add a few weeks to the process.)3. Have you ever tried doing this with orange peel?

Gosh, I can't wait to try this. And I love your cat, it seems to manage to sneak into all the pictures.

Sometimes even 15 minutes on the street clock is a world away! A letter of the alphabet can be an entire light-year, a galaxy, a universe. - AntiM

The purpose of infusing it with both liquors is to infuse it with both liquors. Saving the vodka for later as some kind of stir-in or lesser part of the infusion process... changes both the flavor and makes something different than limoncello, IMO. I like the flavor and am interested in making limoncello, so I do that.

Adding lemon zest (not whole peels) as they accumulate strikes me as a lazy-person's half-ass way to go. Instead of adding the zest over the span of hours, adding over the span of days or weeks means that some of the material has less time in the mixture. I've never done it, but imagine it would only lead to a lesser infusion than if all the material were in for the entire period of time. Making limoncello isn't about saving a buck or cutting corners (it takes more than six months to do it right, and costs more than buying a bottle at the liquor store). YMMV, but none of our lemons go to waste. What isn't used immediately is juiced and stored in containers. It doesn't take us that long to go through, and that's with me making 4 batches this year.

No, I've never made orangecello. I'm not like a homebrew/infuser person who's really into making as many different variations and concoctions as I can - I'm just interested in making the one thing.

As for the cat.. a lot of my projects usually involve power tools and stuff she's either afraid of or can't be around for, so she loves to sit off to the side and watch whatever I'm doing with rapt attention when she can.

I was going to make some elder blossom liquor this weekend - only to find out that they already have tiny berries. Probably due to the absence of a real winter - they have bloomed one month earlier than usual. But since I did not raid the town's trees of blossoms, it'll be more berries to harvest later.

Worked on my Lego project all weekend long. Another house (apiary) is almost finished. First exhibition is at the end of June. Really got to crank it to get everything done!

Still got to order the missing parts & build the roof.

Sometimes even 15 minutes on the street clock is a world away! A letter of the alphabet can be an entire light-year, a galaxy, a universe. - AntiM

Amazing piece, congrats! Mostly I'm in awe of the amazing things happening with Lego these days, but there's a small part of me that thinks it's some kind of cheat that they've got so many incredibly specialized pieces in some of those sets (Star Wars, etc). Growing up, everything was made out of the same standard part-set, I don't think they even did custom-colors on the bricks. In order to DIY build a Lego X-Wing it just took amassing enough bricks that you could get enough pieces that were close in color to what we'd seen on the big screen. Don't get me wrong, I'd have killed for some of the awesome parts they have available today, but I feel like a big piece of that 'maker' spirit came from having such limited options.

Really great stuff, Kat, I especially like all the plants and vines and stuff. And that wall-o-parts bins is very impressive.

I've got a little progress on a project I've been meaning to do for a while now. We've got a flat screen tv mounted on our wall, it's great because we don't need to take up space on a table, but not so great because it's this think on the wall with a plug and a little hockey puck (for out appletv dealio) connected to it. I wanted to build a sort of framework to go around it that would mask the wires and make the space look a little better. I've gone back and forth on different materials and designs... initially I wanted metal, but that's just asking for headaches with interference on wireless/remote signals. Thinking about metal, my first thought was a slotted wood design, in the same spirit as my Ziggurati piece, and hey maybe even wire it up with lighting or go really fancy with a bunch of CNC carved/engraved details. I decided not to get too fancy, especially with something like lighting (since the screen should be the man focal point of the space). I also didn't want to go too overboard because who knows how much longer we'll be in this space, and I'd probably end up building something new for a different space.

Anyhow, I did a quick and dirty sketch of what I wanted the other day. I could totally have built something based on the sketch, but I'm in the process of learning to use some new software tools that are just melting my brain every time I dive in. They've got some decent tutorials and whatnot, but I wanted to try using the program for something real-world. It was a huge pain in the ass, but that was more because I'm such a novice when it comes to AutoCAD. It's been an interesting learning experience so far, here's the drawing with all my parts sorted out. I'll hopefully get the chance to get this built next week.

trilobyte wrote:Amazing piece, congrats! Mostly I'm in awe of the amazing things happening with Lego these days, but there's a small part of me that thinks it's some kind of cheat that they've got so many incredibly specialized pieces in some of those sets (Star Wars, etc). Growing up, everything was made out of the same standard part-set, I don't think they even did custom-colors on the bricks. In order to DIY build a Lego X-Wing it just took amassing enough bricks that you could get enough pieces that were close in color to what we'd seen on the big screen. Don't get me wrong, I'd have killed for some of the awesome parts they have available today, but I feel like a big piece of that 'maker' spirit came from having such limited options.

Yes, I totally agree with that. We actually have an acronym for "those pieces", it's POOP (pieces out of other pieces - something you could just as easily build with regular parts). Personally, I consider a lot of parts "un-pieces" because they are so special. I've got so many bins filled with them, I hardly ever buy sets these days - usually only get the parts I need.I've been in the adult builder community for a long time now and it's really amazing how it has all taken off through the Internet in the last years.

trilobyte wrote:And that wall-o-parts bins is very impressive.

Ah, the storage... that's another huge work in progress, hopefully I'll get that finished this summer (well, one is allowed to dream... )

Sometimes even 15 minutes on the street clock is a world away! A letter of the alphabet can be an entire light-year, a galaxy, a universe. - AntiM

trilobyte wrote:Growing up, everything was made out of the same standard part-set, I don't think they even did custom-colors on the bricks.

I only ever had Duplo, I never graduated to real Lego but that meant I made random abstract things which was cool.

trilobyte wrote:I could totally have built something based on the sketch, but I'm in the process of learning to use some new software tools that are just melting my brain every time I dive in. They've got some decent tutorials and whatnot, but I wanted to try using the program for something real-world. It was a huge pain in the ass, but that was more because I'm such a novice when it comes to AutoCAD. It's been an interesting learning experience so far, here's the drawing with all my parts sorted out. I'll hopefully get the chance to get this built next week.

I LOVE AutoCAD, it's SO worth the effort to learn it. You can draw ANYTHING with is and it's crazy powerful. I wish I had kept up to date with it and had reason to use it regularly.

it's just a fucking picnic in the desert, but it's with some of the best people on earth.

I've got the opposite opinion of the infernal program. AutoCAD is the motherfucking devil, and takes itself WAY WAY WAY too seriously as far as I'm concerned. I can understand that they've largely painted themselves into some kind of corner. ACAD's been around so long that it's oddball quirks and shortcuts and conventions pre-date today's standard UI/UX shortcuts and conventions. I'm no stranger to big and complex design programs, and usually when diving into something new it's like being in another country. With ACAD it's like being in another country on another planet with molten lakes and acid rain.

I can already draw in other applications (and enjoy the experience), but it takes quite a bit of shuffling and converting to take designs and creations from one CNC machine to another. Since most of the machines work natively with that beast of an application, I'm working to see if designing directly in it makes for an improved workflow. It's still early days, we'll see how things go.

It's been a busy weekend, one project I got to was to finally get around to building that TV wall unit I'd been thinking about for a while now. A holiday weekend sale at the hardware joint also offered a chance to justify some new tools... Well, it was more like the sale gave us the opportunity to pull the trigger on new tools we had been planning to get. Our studio/camp 'shop' has a pretty good assortment of tools, most of which are corded. The few cordless tools we have are old and have batteries that croak within a few minutes, and the batteries aren't interchangeable between tools. Nowadays the cordless tools use much better battery tech, plus each brand has figured out that modular and interchangeable batteries (within their brand) is something that people want (duh). A big part of both of us was really pining for the better brands - we like and appreciate a well made tool. But we also know that the playa can be equally punishing to all brands, and that since the tools we were getting were going to be used by a bunch of people, we'd be fooling ourselves if we tried to use the "but we'll take really good care of them" argument. So we went with the less expensive stuff, and saved about half on three tools with 2 batteries and a charger plus two of the really high capacity batteries. I'm glad we got the high capacity batteries, since the standard battery only lasted for about 15 minutes of solid cutting. They're probably perfect for occasional apartment DIY, but for any kind of bigger project (or playa) work they'd fall short. Anyhow, enough rambling about power tool shopping, on to the project pics!

Measure and cut!

Assemble! I used an oversized metal L bracket to hold the wood in place at a right angle (using a pair of clamps)

Paint!

Done! The second shot shows the detail of an underhanging shelf I made to accomodate our little AppleTV hockey puck unit, the third shot shows the rounded corner on the top shelf, and the last shot shows the kitten inspecting and approving the completed project.

I designed the unit so that the base comes out to 8 inches from the wall, and then it comes in to only 4 inches from the wall at the point where it gets to the bottom of the TV. I did that not only because I liked the look, but for stability and utility (the space behind accomodates cords and a power strip. Then for added stability (in case of earthquake or jumping cats), the unit is also screwed into the wall at the top. I intentionally left a 1.5 inch gap just under the top shelf to allow ventilation of warm air coming from the tv. It doesn't run hot or anything, but I didn't like the idea of having it totally enclosed. The cross-piece in the back (the one that's screwed into the wall) is painted black, so the gap is invisible when sitting. Looking at the shot above you can see the wall through the gap - I may circle back and staple in a length of black fabric to obscure it. Overall though, I'm happy with the project. Cables are tucked away, stuff that we don't want the cats to play (one of our cats has been really fascinated with a piece of the mounting bracket), and the cats get a bonus shelf to climb/walk/nap on. And at the end of the day, it's all about the cat furniture.